Contact:

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a relatively small agency that plays a vital role in transportation safety and has a worldwide reputation for investigating accidents. With a staff of about 400 and a budget of $76.7 million in fiscal year 2006, NTSB investigates all civil aviation accidents in the United States, and significant accidents in railroad, highway, marine, and pipeline; and issues safety recommendations to address issues identified during accident investigations. To support its mission, NTSB built a training academy, which opened in 2003 and provides training to NTSB investigators and others. It is important that NTSB use its resources efficiently to carry out its mission and maintain its preeminence. This testimony, based on ongoing work for this committee, addresses the extent to which NTSB follows leading practices in selected management areas, addresses challenges in completing accident investigations and closing safety recommendations, and generates sufficient revenues to cover costs at its academy.

NTSB has recently made progress in following leading management practices, but overall has a mixed record. For example, NTSB has improved its financial management by hiring a Chief Financial Officer and putting controls on its purchasing activities, which should address past problems with unapproved purchases. However, NTSB lacks a full cost accounting system, which would inform managers of the resources spent on individual investigations and provide data to balance office workload. NTSB has also begun to develop a performance management system that should eventually link each individual's performance to the agency's strategic goals and objectives. However, the performance management system will not be fully functional until NTSB has developed a strategic plan with results-oriented goals and objectives and specific strategies for achieving them, which are lacking in the current strategic plan. Other areas, such as human capital and communications, partially follow leading practices. While NTSB is accomplishing its accident investigation mission, it faces challenges that affect the efficiency of the report production and recommendation close out processes. NTSB routinely takes longer than 2 years to complete major investigations. Several factors may affect the length of report production, including several revisions of draft reports through multiple layers of the organization. In addition, the processes for federal transportation agencies to implement NTSB's safety recommendations and for NTSB to change the status of recommendations are lengthy, paper-based, and labor intensive. While Department of Transportation officials have been working with NTSB to find acceptable means of implementing its recommendations, they cite the lengthy rule-making process as a challenge to speedy implementation. For fiscal years 2004 and 2005, NTSB's academy did not generate sufficient revenues to cover the costs of providing training. As a result, those portions of the academy's costs that were not covered by the revenues from tuition and other sources--approximately $6.3 million in fiscal year 2004 and $3.9 million in fiscal year 2005--were offset by general appropriations to the agency. While NTSB has taken action to generate revenue from other sources, such as renting academy space for conferences, it does not have a marketing plan that seeks to optimize opportunities for additional revenues at the academy.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: In 2006, we found that the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) training center was underutilized, with less than 10 percent of the available classroom capacity being used during fiscal years 2005 and 2006. This contributed to the training center not being cost-effective, as the combination of the training center's revenues and external training costs avoided by NTSB staff's use of the facility did not cover the center's costs. We recommended that NTSB maximize the delivery of core investigator curriculum at its training center. NTSB implemented the intent of our recommendation to maximize the delivery of its core investigator curriculum at the Training Center by increasing the number of NTSB-related courses for investigators taught at the Training Center. For example in 2008, 49 of the 68 courses offered at the Training Center were solely for NTSB employees. This has helped increase the use of the Training Center.

Recommendation: To enhance the utilization of the academy and improve the ability to generate revenues that will cover academy costs, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should develop core investigator curriculum for each mode and maximize the delivery of that training at the academy.

Agency Affected: National Transportation Safety Board

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: In 2006, we found that National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) training center was not cost-effective, as the combination of the training center's revenues and external training costs avoided by NTSB staff's use of the facility did not cover the center's costs. As a result, those portions of the training center's costs that were not covered by the revenues from tuition and other sources (approximately $6.3 million in fiscal year 2004 and $3.9 million in fiscal year 2005) were offset by general appropriations to the agency. We recommended that NTSB develop a business plan and a marketing plan to increase utilization of the training center or vacate its training center. NTSB has implemented this recommendation. NTSB completed a revised business plan in March 2008. NTSB subleased all available office space at its Training Center to the Federal Air Marshal Service at an annual fee of $479,000. NTSB also increased use of the Training Center's classroom space and thereby increased the revenues it receives from course fees and rents for classroom and conference space. From fiscal year 2006 through fiscal year 2009, NTSB increased other agencies' and its own use of classroom space from 10 to 80 percent, and increased revenues by over $1.1 million. For example, according to NTSB it has a sublease agreement with DHS to rent approximately one-third of the classroom space. NTSB considered moving certain staff from headquarters to the Training Center, but halted these considerations after subleasing all of the Training Center's available office space. NTSB decreased personnel expenses related to the Training Center from about $980,000 in fiscal year 2005 to $507,000 in fiscal year 2009 by reducing the center's full-time equivalent positions from 8.5 to 3.0 over the same period. As a result of these efforts, from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2009, Training Center revenues increased 179 percent while the center's overall deficit decreased by 51 percent.

Recommendation: To enhance the utilization of the academy and improve the ability to generate revenues that will cover academy costs, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should develop a comprehensive marketing plan for the academy. The plan should consider such things as outreach to potential users, working with the Department of Agriculture and the General Services Administration to market it as classroom and conference space, and conducting market research for additional curriculum development. If ethical and conflict-of-interest issues can be addressed, the plan should also consider options for allowing transportation manufacturers to conduct company-sponsored symposia and technical training at the academy facility, which would benefit NTSB investigators in keeping up with new technologies. In addition the plan should consider the feasibility of subleasing a portion of the academy space.

Agency Affected: National Transportation Safety Board

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: On August 6, 2010, GAO received the following information from NTSB: During FY2010, NTSB rolled out a few small to medium sized applications that support mission and administrative functions that meet ongoing needs and served to acclimate NTSB employees in the use of SharePoint. The CNS (Correspondence Control, Notation and Safety Recommendation) application, currently in final acceptance testing, is scheduled for production implementation in September 2010. This application will provide a workflow driven solution that will allow for concurrent review of Safety Board products to include accident reports.

Recommendation: To enhance the efficiency of the report development and recommendation close-out processes, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should improve the efficiency of the review process for changing the status of recommendations by computerizing the documentation and implementing concurrent reviews.

Agency Affected: National Transportation Safety Board

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: In 2006, we found that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) developed a draft agencywide staffing plan in December 2005 that followed several leading practices in workforce planning but lacked other leading practices such as a workforce deployment strategy that considers the organizational structure and its balance of supervisory and nonsupervisory positions. We recommended NTSB eliminate any unnecessary management layers. In response, NTSB has eliminated unnecessary management layers. For example, to streamline the management structure in the Office of Aviation Safety, in 2008 NTSB realigned the operations from 10 regional offices into four regions, simplifying the reporting structure. We conclude that NTSB fulfilled this recommendation by eliminating unnecessary management layers, thereby simplifying its reporting structure.

Recommendation: To enhance the efficiency of the report development and recommendation close-out processes, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should identify better practices in the agency and apply them to all modes. Consider such things as using project managers or deputy investigators-in-charge in all modes, using incentives to encourage performance in report development, and examining the layers of review to find ways to streamline the process, such as eliminating some levels of review and using concurrent reviews as appropriate.

Agency Affected: National Transportation Safety Board

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: NTSB management officials have put in place processes to improve communication within the agency. For example, managers and Board members hold periodic meetings with staff, such as brown bag lunches; conduct outreach visits to regional offices; hold "town-hall" meetings in which NTSB employees ask questions of the managing director; and conduct meetings with union leadership to provide information on upcoming actions by the agency and to allow union leaders the opportunity to pose questions to management. In addition, the agency has formed two bodies comprising representatives from management and staff intended to enhance internal communication, including upward communication. One body is comprised of employees from NTSB's administrative offices, and the other from NTSB's program offices. In addition, NTSB has begun conducting several periodic surveys of employees, including (1) a survey to measure staff satisfaction with internal communications; (2) a survey to obtain employees' views on the mission statement and goals that NTSB proposed for its revised strategic plan; (3) four separate surveys to measure employee satisfaction with services provided by NTSB's administrative, human resources, and acquisition divisions and NTSB's health and safety program; and (4) a biennial survey to obtain employee feedback on NTSB's human resources efforts. This latter survey supplements-by being conducted during alternating years-the Office of Personnel Management's biennial survey of federal employees that measures employees' perceptions of the extent to which conditions characterizing successful organizations are present in their agencies. NTSB officials told us that because the communications survey indicated a need for NTSB's individual offices to hold more frequent staff meetings, the agency has established a goal for fiscal year 2008 for each of its offices to achieve 75 percent of staff being either satisfied or very satisfied with their office staff meetings.

Recommendation: To improve agency performance in the key functional management areas of strategic planning, human capital planning, financial management, and communications, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should develop mechanisms that will facilitate communications from staff-level employees to senior management, including consideration of contracting out a confidential employee survey to obtain employee feedback on management initiatives.

Agency Affected: National Transportation Safety Board

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: In 2006, we found that NTSB lacked a full cost accounting system, which would inform managers of the resources spent on individual investigations and provide data to balance office workload. As a result, NTSB managers had little information they could use to plan the utilization of staff resources or manage staff workloads properly. We recommended that NTSB develop a full cost accounting system that would track the amount of time employees spend on each investigation and in training. In fiscal year 2012, we verified that NTSB substantially completed this recommendation by implementing an accounting system that tracks the amount of time and dollars that employees spend on each investigation and in developing or teaching training courses. When fully integrated into ongoing operations management, this system should provide NTSB managers with information to allow for better allocation of staff resources and workload management.

Recommendation: To improve agency performance in the key functional management areas of strategic planning, human capital planning, financial management, and communications, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should develop a full cost-accounting system that would track the amount of time employees spend on each investigation and in training.

Agency Affected: National Transportation Safety Board

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: Since 2007, managers and Board members began holding periodic meetings with staff, such as brown bag lunches; conducting outreach visits to regional offices; and holding "townhall" meetings in which NTSB employees ask questions of the managing director. In November 2007, NTSB informed us that it is conducting meetings with union leadership to provide information on upcoming actions by the agency and to allow union leaders the opportunity to pose questions to management. In addition, the agency has formed two bodies comprising representatives from management and staff intended to enhance internal communication, including upward communication; one body was formed by NTSB and is comprised of employees from NTSB's administrative offices; and another was formed from NTSB's program offices. In addition, NTSB began conducting periodic surveys of employees, including (1) a July 2007 survey to measure staff satisfaction with internal communications; (2) a survey to obtain employees' views on the mission statement and goals that NTSB proposed for its revised strategic plan (conducted February 2007); (3) four separate surveys throughout 2007 to measure employee satisfaction with services provided by NTSB's administrative, human resources, and acquisition divisions and NTSB's health and safety program; and (4) a biennial survey, held in November 2007, to obtain employee feedback on NTSB's human resources efforts.

Recommendation: To improve agency performance in the key functional management areas of strategic planning, human capital planning, financial management, and communications, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should improve strategic planning by developing a revised strategic plan that follows performance-based practices; developing a strategic training plan that is aligned with the revised strategic plan and identifies skill gaps that pose obstacles to meeting the agency's strategic goals and curriculum that would eliminate these gaps; and aligning their organizational structure to implement the strategic plan and eliminate unnecessary management layers.

Agency Affected: National Transportation Safety Board

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: In May 2006, we found that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is not precluded by its training center lease or its headquarters space in Washington, D.C., from relocating some headquarters staff to the Virginia facility. As such, we recommended that NTSB conduct a study to determine the costs and feasibility of moving certain functions from the agency's headquarters to their academy facility in preparation for the renegotiation of the headquarters lease, which expires in 2011. By July 2008, NTSB's managing director consulted with the agency's senior leadership to discuss the issue of moving additional functions to the training center. Input from management was analyzed, and the managing director determined that it was not cost beneficial to move functions to the training center beyond the current staff already working at the center. In part because of this decision, NTSB implemented a strategy to sublet remaining space at the training center.

Recommendation: To enhance the utilization of the academy and improve the ability to generate revenues that will cover academy costs, the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board should conduct a study to determine the costs and feasibility of moving certain functions from headquarters to the academy facility in preparation for the renegotiation of the headquarters lease, which expires in 2011.